we are free to do what god requires you
We hear the phrase all the time, fifty-fifty sing it aloud in church and on the radio — "where the Spirit of the Lord is in that location is freedom." It'southward tricky, and it feels good to say information technology. But is there truth to this argument, or is it merely a experience-practiced platitude?
Is 'Where the Spirit of the Lord Is There Is Freedom' In the Bible?
The argument, "where the spirit of the lord is there is freedom," is indeed in the Bible. The Apostle Paul, in his second letter to the early church building in Corinth, wrote most how, with the precious gift of the Holy Spirit, we now take a new covenant with God. That covenant is a truthful, honest, open connectedness to the Living Lord that brings liberty like goose egg else.
Equally Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians three:17, "At present the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (NIV).
What Does This Phrase Mean?
To empathise the full meaning of the phrase, nosotros demand to look at the full context of what Paul was writing about. The essence is that, because we have absolute access to the Holy Spirit when we become believers in Christ Jesus, nosotros go the opportunity to enjoy the full freedom of intimate, close connection with God.
We didn't ever enjoy such a connectedness. In the past, God'southward people required an intermediary between them and the Lord. While we know God spoke directly with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and other chosen ones, there were typically house boundaries between God and human beings. Often, He chose to communicate through angels and prophets.
Some, like Moses, He was so close to that He spoke with Moses one-on-one, like a friend (Exodus 33:11). Merely even that strong relationship had limitations. For example, when Moses begged God to evidence him God'due south glory, God refused to show Him his full face — that is, His total glory — and Moses had to hibernate in the cleft of a rock until God passed past, revealing only a glimpse of His back (Exodus 33:18-23).
But Jesus, the link between God and humanity, inverse everything. And when Jesus rose to heaven after His resurrection, He left behind a souvenir for the people: The Holy Spirit, whom He called our "advocate" (John 14:15-31).
That advocate, a discussion too translated as our "helper," is our amanuensis of truth. The Holy Spirit is non a ability or force just a person, 1 with both the Father and Son, who authored the Scripture and created the world. And in Him, we find freedom.
What Is the Holy Spirit?
Likewise chosen the "Holy Ghost," the Holy Spirit is considered by most Christian denominations to be the third person in what is known as the Holy Trinity, comprising God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Spirit comes from the Greek give-and-take pneuma, which means wind or spirit. According to Strong'due south Concordance, the word comes from the root pneó, which ways "to blow," much like the wind blows like a breath upon the world. The person of God'south Spirit, then, blows the jiff of life that animates all living creatures.
Jesus promised that the Spirit would come to live in all His people after His resurrection. And as we meet in the Book of Acts, that promise was fulfilled on the 24-hour interval of Pentecost, when all the believers were gathered in one place and heard a sound much similar a vehement, rushing current of air.
Every bit Scripture describes, "They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to residuum on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" (Deed 2:3-4).
The Spirit, live in each of them, enabled the apostles to be witnesses for Jesus, able to fulfill what Jesus commissioned them to practise in Matthew 28:19-twenty:
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and education them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very stop of the historic period."
What Did the Holy Spirit Practise Through the Apostles?
The Book of Acts contains many examples of the Holy Spirit filling God's people — those who chose to believe in Christ, repent of their sins, be baptized, and follow Him as the "way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6).
Filled with the Spirit, the apostles were able to perform signs and wonders. Peter, John, and others were able to speak eloquently most the Bible as if they were educated men when in reality they were non — rather, it was the Spirit speaking through them.
The Spirit led the Apostle Philip to bring the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8:29), and the eunuch became a believer.
The Spirit also directed the Apostle Paul's travels, including steering him from where non to go — throughout the province of Asia (Acts 16:half dozen) — and preparing him for the prison stays and other hardships awaiting him in diverse towns (Acts 20:23). Then many examples abound.
What Kind of Freedom Does the Spirit Offer?
In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul reminds the early on church that they are walking embodiments of the Holy Spirit. He calls them "a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry building, written non with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone only on tablets of human hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:3).
This Spirit does a number of things: He makes us competent, able to practice God's work, and He too gives united states life (ii Corinthians 3:6). Equally Paul explains, in Moses'due south time, we were given stone tablets engraved with our ministry instructions. These were indeed glorious, but they led to death. However, at present we have the ministry of the Spirit within united states, engraved non on stone just upon our hearts, lasting forever (2 Corinthians 3:7-10).
Now, in the Spirit, we have hope, Paul writes. Earlier, in that location was a veil between the people and God, just considering of Jesus Christ, that veil — that barrier — is gone (2 Corinthians 3:fourteen).
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord'due south glory, are being transformed into his epitome with e'er-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16-18).
We have free, complete, unfettered admission to God thanks to the liberation of the Holy Spirit, who comes upon united states of america when we accept Christ as our savior.
Every bit the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible explains, "The Spirit gives believers freedom of access into God's presence without fear, as well as freedom from chains to sin, to death, and to the law as a means of acquiring righteousness."
What Other Bible Verses Mention Freedom in the Spirit?
Many verses throughout the New Testament echo this like point virtually freedom in the Spirit. In add-on to the to a higher place, hither are a few others:
In him and through faith in him nosotros may arroyo God with liberty and confidence (Ephesians 3:12).
It is for liberty that Christ has set united states free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened once again past a yoke of slavery (Galatians five:1).
"So if the Son sets you lot complimentary, you lot will exist gratis indeed" (John 8:36).
Merely at present that you take been ready gratis from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life (Romans 6:22).
But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it — non forgetting what they have heard, but doing it — they will be blessed in what they do (James 1:25).
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the police of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened past the flesh, God did by sending his ain Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to exist a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh merely according to the Spirit (Romans 8:one-4).
The Spirit can do and then much when we are willing to let Him use us fully. Paul's reminder, that the Lord is the Spirit and in Him, nosotros find ultimate liberty, is perhaps the most hopeful. For in a life filled with prisons — self-imposed and otherwise — merely Jesus brings existent freedom.
And that liberty lasts forever.
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Source: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/is-it-true-where-the-spirit-of-the-lord-is-there-is-freedom.html
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